


empty coffee cups

by kittymills



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arranged Marriage, Fake Marriage, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Minor Angst, Pining Keith (Voltron), Real estate au, SHEITH - Freeform, not how it works in the real world shhh just pretend for the sake of this fic, property developer Shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-01-12 04:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18439124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymills/pseuds/kittymills
Summary: All Keith has left of his parents is the run down worker's cottage overlooking the city skyline that was his childhood home... and a pile of debt.Offers come thick and fast to buy the property but Keith refuses to sell, until property developer Takashi Shirogane steps forward with a business offer he can't refuse.But what follows is anything but business.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure if I was going to post this since this is based off an original idea I had years and years ago but I wanted to see how it would work as Sheith.

* * *

 

The rain is cold on his cheeks but he doesn’t move away. He watches the way it falls onto the ground, creating little pools around his boots. He doesn’t look any further, where the ground opens up and a mound of dirt is piled high.

He doesn’t watch as the coffin is lowered into the gaping wound in the earth, as large and as dark as the one in his chest.

He doesn’t speak when the crowd peels away, or when his father’s work family pause at his side and offer him a silent squeeze of his shoulder before they move on.

There’s only so many times he can hear the words _I’m sorry_ _for your loss_ anyway.

The rain softens to a drizzle then fades to a mist and the sky grows dark before he can finally tear himself away.

He goes home to an empty house.

 

* * *

 

It’s a few days later when Hunk knocks on the door of the small workers cottage that sits on the hill overlooking the city. It’s one of the originals in the area, harking back to the days when the city was young and commerce bustled on the edges of the river. It’s old, but sturdy, offering up a rough kind of vintage charm where the paint peels off the weather boards and the floors creak underfoot.

Keith has lived in this house for as long as he can remember, passing hot summers in the yard under the shade of the old mango tree planted by the original owners long before even his parents were born. His parents had bought this house as newlyweds, his father spending his weekends off from the fire station tinkering in the shed in the back corner while his mother gave guitar lessons in the front living room.

Keith hadn’t minded being banished outside during those hours she taught, he was a creature of the outdoors, scampering through over the branches of the old trees along the back fence and watching the city grow in the distance.

He’d been happy there, until his mother had left one balmy evening to visit a friend and never made it home.

She hadn’t suffered, they said. It was quick, she wouldn’t have felt a thing, they’d told him, as if that somehow made it okay he had to grow up without her.

And Keith, only fourteen and cast adrift in a world that suddenly didn’t make sense, had been angry for a long time.

Angry that _he’d_ been the one left behind to hurt. Angry that his father hadn’t saved her.

It was an irrational thought, he knows now. Age and maturity had given him the perspective to realise he had just been looking for someone to blame. Desperate to make some kind of warped sense of his reality that had been shaken to its core.

It had taken the call from Kolivan many years later to realise how much time he’d wasted being angry at his father. That even though the fire had claimed him, Keith had actually lost him a very long time ago.

The house creaks around him, full of the ghosts of his childhood. It was all he had left of them now.

Hunk thumps off his boots, the only notice he gives before he pulls open the screen and steps inside. The old hinges squeal with the movement and Keith adds oiling them to his ever growing mental list of tasks that needed to be done.

“Yo, Keith. I brought you some food. I know you’re probably not feeding yourself and there’s only so long that the pizza guy is going to tolerate being growled at by your dog.”

Keith meets him in the hallway, gratefully reaching for the box Hunk carries. It’s warm against his fingers and the scent that wafts up smells like heaven.

“God, what is this stuff? Smells amazing.”

“Oh, just my mom’s family recipes. I hope you like banana cake, mom went a little crazy with that one. But it’s okay, you can freeze it.”

“Sounds good.”

Keith slides the box onto the kitchen counter. The kitchen in the cottage has seen better days, one of the things Keith’s mother had been anxious about redesigning it. She hadn’t had the chance before they lost her, and Keith’s father had lost interest after she was gone. It’s tired now, a dripping tap that sticks out of the wall, narrow bench tops and handles missing from the doors. Dark too, with only one bulb that hangs from the centre of the ceiling to illuminate the space.

At least the fridge and the microwave were relatively modern. Keith didn’t need much more than that.

Hunk helps him to slide the various food containers into the fridge. There’s enough there to last him at least a week and the thought of not having to venture into the crowds and the world outside soothes him more than he realises. He doesn’t have the energy to put on his game face, to pretend to the world that he’s okay, that nothing had really changed.

He doesn’t have the energy to lie but he doesn’t want the world’s pity either.

There’s a faint click along the floorboards as his dog pads down the hallway. He presses his nose into Hunk’s hand and Hunk chuckles quietly. He not-so-stealthily slips Kosmo a treat from his pocket.

At Keith’s faint frown, Hunk has the grace to looks sheepish.

“What?” Hunk protests defensively. “Come on, he’s a good dog, he deserves a little treat now and then.”

“You give him one almost every day.”

Hunk shrugs and busies himself with ensuring that Kosmo has the biggest belly rubs he’s capable of. Kosmo isn’t a small dog, he’s fluffy and drooly and he lies on his back with his legs in the air and tongue lolling as Hunk crouches down beside him.

Keith wants to smile at the sight, but something inside him is too numb.

Hunk leaves a short time later, armed with the knowledge that Keith will be okay for a few more days. He promises to be there when Keith needs to head across the river and into the city to discuss the estate with the solicitors and Keith locks the door behind him when he hears the sound of his car start up.

He walks back down the hallway, pausing for a beat beside the doorway to what had once been his parents’ room. The bed is still rumpled from when his father last slept in it, his clothes draped over the chair by the window. A tattered paperback with the spine cracked and the pages curling lies face down on the bedside table and outside through the dusty window, a colourful parrot flitters through the leaves of the tree before rising off with a squawk into the sky.

In the echoing silence, he tries to recall the last conversation he had with his father and realises he can’t remember what they even talked about.

Kosmo pushes his head against Keith’s thigh, as though trying to nudge him away. It’s close to his dinner time now and he’s getting impatient.

Keith runs his gaze once more over the room. He’s going to have to pack all this stuff up soon, his father’s clothes, the old sheets. Call a local charity to collect it all and hope that someone out there might find use for his father’s odd collection of novelty belt buckles and his mother’s flowy floral dresses.

He pulls the door shut on the scene, his chest tight but his eyes dry.

He tells himself he’ll deal with it soon enough.

 

* * *

 

Keith stares dumbly at the letter in his hands. The solicitor had tried to warn him but he thought the bank would give him more time. He stares until the numbers shift and blur on the page.

It’s too much. He hasn’t got enough. Death taxes were something he’d only heard about in movies and now the deferred payment from his mother’s passing added to what his father owed was enough to drown him in debt for the next twenty years.

“You could sell the house,” Hunk tells him quietly. He doesn’t look Keith in the eye but he still flinches slightly when Keith suddenly slams the paperwork onto the table. It’s easier to be angry, to hide behind the red haze and delve into the familiar bitterness he always settled into when he thought of his father.

God, he’d been such a dumb kid and now it was too late to fix it.

“I can’t sell it, Hunk. This place is a dump. Who’s going to buy it in this state?”

Hunk wisely doesn’t remind him of the construction going on a few doors down. The cottage there had been demolished, now making way for some kind of modern mcmansion. It was a familiar story playing out over the suburb that Keith had paid little attention to until now. Until the real estate agents started knocking on the door and leaving notes in his letter box, professing to have clients desperate to buy the house he grew up in.

Desperate to knock it down and start again. Gentrifying the suburb that had not so long ago been a firmly middle-class neighbourhood with leafy streets and big yards.

Keith casts his gaze around at the tired state of the building. Strip away a lifetime of memories and the mismatched furniture and the home was in sore need of restoration. The electrics dated back to before the war, the bathroom ceiling had a leak that filled the tub during every summer storm, the deck that looked out onto the city showed hints of rot that make Keith nervous enough he wasn’t sure if he wanted to crawl any further lest the old wooden stumps holding the house up were on the verge of being eaten away by terminates.

Maybe the easiest thing would be just to sell, let some developer knock down the tired walls and the tin roof and build their concrete dream home instead.

Except… this was all Keith had left of his parents. He wasn’t ready to lose them all over again. He had a debt of a different kind to pay. Especially to his father.

Hunk rubs the back of his neck. “Maybe you can refinance? Get a loan? My buddy Lance, he’s an assistant to this hot shot property guy, right? And not only that, his girlfriend is like, this totally awesome lawyer who knows all the tricks of the trade. Maybe you could talk to them? Get the place revalued.”

“Lance?” Keith scoffs. He’s met him a couple of times and it had been an instant, mutual dislike. Keith thought he was loud and a try hard, he thought Keith was rude and stuck up. “The guy who cornered me at your party a few months ago and acted like I was some kind of usurper just because we were hanging out?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, that’s just Lance. He’s kind of protective. All talk. He’s a good guy at heart, though. Seriously, this is what he does. You should talk to him. Or at least his boss.”

Keith entertains the idea of all of two seconds before he discards it. He doesn’t need a hot shot real estate agent to walk through the house and low ball him with a pathetic offer, or worse, cluck their tongue at the state of the place. He knows it needs work, he knows it’s value. But it’s valuable in a way that can’t be quantified. In a way that makes up the building blocks of his heart.

And where would he find someone who would understand that?

 

* * *

 

Lance turns out not to be as big of a dick as Keith had initially thought and he finds himself almost feeling bad that he had regulated him into nothing more of an annoyance so quickly.

Almost.

Lance brushes the dog fur off his expensive looking suit and fixes his tie. He hands Keith a business card, telling him to expect a call from his boss later in the day. Keith takes it without looking at the name embossed onto its surface and it catches him by surprise when around dusk that afternoon, the front gate creaks open and a tall man in a dark suit walks up the front path. Keith almost yells at him to beat it, much like he had with the other vultures that had circled in the days following his father’s passing, except Kosmo doesn’t lower his haunches and growl at this particular guy.

If anything, he seems to be happy to see him. His tail thumps happily against the veranda.

“Hello?” the man calls out, lifting a hand to shade his eyes from the motion sensitive light that snaps on. It’s dark enough now that the sensors are firing. The man blinks but continues forward along the path. “Hello? I’m Takashi Shirogane, I’m here to see Keith.”

Keith waits until the man stops at the bottom step. Keith wants to answer but somehow he can’t quite find his voice.

“Are you Keith?”

“Yeah,” Keith grunts, telling himself it’s not because the man is insanely gorgeous to look at. Gorgeous enough that Keith can’t take his eyes off him and mildly surprised that his polished stranger so clearly not his usual type could have such an effect on him.

Not that he really had a type. Boyfriends and girlfriends were few and far between in Keith’s world and he liked it just fine that way.

The man – Takashi - glances around the front yard briefly and Keith wishes time would slow down long enough for him to really study him. He has slicked back dark hair and grey eyes above high cheekbones, broad shoulders and he wears a suit that looks like it costs more than Keith makes in a year.

“Did Hunk send you?”

The man’s eyes slide to Kosmo pressing against Keith’s leg then back to Keith. He smiles like he knows something.

“Lance told me a friend of a friend of his needed a favour. I assume that’s you?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could say that.”

Takashi reaches into his pocket. He pulls out something small that sends Kosmo instantly bounding down the few steps to where the he stands on the path. Keith can see what’s about to happen from miles away but he doesn’t have a chance to call out a warning before Kosmo places two dirty paws on Takashi’s expensive suit and knocks him to the ground. He slobbers at Takashi’s hand before sniffing closer at his pockets, half clambering over him in his excitement to sniff out whatever else Takashi might have.

Well, that explains the lack of growling from Kosmo, Keith thinks as his dog licks a big sloppy stripe up Takashi’s cheek. He can’t help but feel that’s not the whole story though.

“Kosmo! Stop!”

The dog ignores him, of course. Keith hurries down the stairs. Takashi groans slightly then lets out a small grunt when Kosmo seems to step on a delicate area when Keith hauls him off.

“Oof, whoa, okay now. That’s-“

“Kosmo,” Keith grits his teeth. His dog is huge and stubborn. “Come on, move.”

Keith has no choice but to curl his fingers around his dog’s collar to hold him back long enough for Takashi to climb to his feet.

He stares at Takashi in dismay. His suit looks ruined, fur and dirt smeared over it. On the crisp white shirt there’s even a greenish stain. No doubt this guy is going to want it replaced and behind his eyes, Keith sees his meagre savings dwindle even further.

So much for putting those funds into the house.

“I’m so sorry,” he starts, gripping Kosmo’s collar tightly even as the dog strains unhappily against Keith’s hold. “He’s not usually like this.”

Takashi bends down to brush himself off. He has nice hands, Keith thinks absently. Wide palms and square fingernails and he smoothes one hand through his hair as he gives Keith something that looks far too sheepish for what Keith expects.

“It’s my fault,” he says and Keith wonders if he’s hearing things correctly or maybe if this guy knocked his head a little too hard when Kosmo bowled him over. “Lance suggested I bring a doggy treat to win over your guard dog and I fell for it.”

Keith frowns, struggling to follow just what Takashi means. “What?”

Takashi laughs awkwardly but it’s a light sound, not a hint of anger that his flashy suit might just have been trashed beyond recognition. Not to mention his hair. It’s not so slicked back now and one lock falls forward over one brow adorably.

God, Keith can count on one hand the amount of times physical attraction to another person had hit him as hard as this. Takashi smiles again, and Keith’s heart does an odd flip flop in his chest.

Okay, that was weird. This was weird. This whole thing was weird.

“Lance is a bit of a prankster. He must have told me to do that just to see me get knocked on my ass. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s hiding in the bushes right now filming this.”

Takashi glances over his shoulder then turns back to Keith, still smiling. The smile falters when Keith just stares dumbly at him. It’s not until he clears his throat that Keith snaps out of whatever fugue he had fallen into and shakes himself off.

Keith gestures towards the house. “Maybe, uh. Maybe you should come inside?”

Takashi beams at him, eyes so warm they’re almost like hug.

“That sounds good.”

 

* * *

 

Keith takes Takashi on a tour through the house, conscious of the way Takashi seems unbothered by how Kosmo follows him so closely he drools over his hand. Keith is conscious of the state of the place too, the peeling paint, the ugly furniture but Takashi doesn’t comment beyond a small, sharp inhalation of breath when Keith takes him out onto the back deck and a vision of the city skyline lit up in coloured lights beyond the river greets them.

When they go back inside, Takashi shucks off his suit jacket and drapes it over the side of a chair. Keith winces internally at the sight of one of the pockets flapping loosely but he’s quickly distracted by the way Takashi deftly rolls up his sleeves and loosens the tie at his throat.

He should look completely out of place perched on the edge of Keith’s father’s old recliner, leaning forward so that he can reach down to rub the furry belly Kosmo presents to him as they talk, but somehow he doesn’t. Somehow it feels natural that this man should be here, even more so when he insists that Keith call him _Shiro_ instead of Takashi.

Keith finds he likes the way that name sits on his tongue.

“So, do you think there’s anything I can do?” he asks, holding out a glass of chilled water to Shiro after returning from the kitchen to overhear Shiro talking to Kosmo. The dog gazes up at him adoringly and Keith kind of knows how he feels.

Shiro looks up and smiles gratefully. The ice cubes rattle softly as Shiro takes the glass from him.

“Well, to be honest, a place like this you would be looking at land value alone. The views you have out over the city from your deck are some of the best I’ve seen and those views are what are really driving the prices around here. I know you want to keep the house, but without some serious repair work and dressing, I don’t know if you would be able to raise the value much at all.”

Keith nods, unsurprised by what Shiro tells him. It’s what he expected but it doesn’t make the drop of his stomach any less dramatic. He has no idea how he’s going to pull this together and still retain the house. The hidden debts his father had, the death taxes already deferred once and unable to be deferred again. Keith’s job as a mechanic didn’t pay nearly enough to make a dent in all the debts that had been passed to him from his parents.

“Is there anyone who could help you with a loan?” Shiro asks him gently.

Keith thinks about the people in his life, his father’s work friends in Kolivan and Thace and Ulaz. He doubts any of them would be able to help him and a sharp kind of pride prevents him from ever allowing himself to ask anyway. Neither of his parents had family and his friends circle was small and tightknit. Pidge and Hunk were struggling just as much as he was. No one had funds spare enough to loan him.

“No,” he answers. He can see the dream of holding his parents close for a little while longer slipping away from him. “And the banks won’t lend to me.”

“Hmm,” Shiro muses. He leans back in the chair, one hand absently patting Kosmo’s head. Keith can’t help but stare. _Traitor,_ he wants to hiss at his dog. “And a sudden influx of funds you couldn’t justify to the tax department could land you in a lot of trouble too.”

“Yeah.”

A beat of silence rings in the air between them. It should be uncomfortable but there’s something about Shiro that puts him at ease. Perhaps it was the gentle way he stroked Kosmo’s head, the disregard for his suit or the genuine way he smiles at Keith but something inside Keith’s chest cracks and a little bit of warmth leaks through.

Suddenly Keith doesn’t want him to leave.

Which makes Shiro’s proposal all that much easier to accept.


	2. Chapter 2

“Wait, wait, wait,” Hunk throws up his hands. “Run that by me again?”

Keith stares at a spot over Hunk’s shoulder. He knows Hunk is going to think he’s crazy. He knows he’s crazy but when Shiro first floated the idea to him, the most natural thing in the world was to say yes.

Now, in the cool light of day, Keith found himself feeling mildly stupid.

Not stupid enough to pick up the phone and call it off though. Not with the chance to hold onto the house for just a bit longer.

“It was Shiro’s idea,” Keith shrugs. “And it makes sense.”

“Well, of course it makes sense! He’s a property developer. Of course, he wants first dibs on the block whenever you’re ready to sell. Then he’ll give you a really low price, build a bunch of fancy apartments, sell them for a bomb and he walks away happy. What’s in it for you though?”

“No,” Keith shakes his head. It’s not quite the whole truth, not even close but Keith feels too raw and defensive to protest too much. He had talked with Shiro for hours, walking through every step of Shiro’s proposal. It had sounded ludicrous at first, but made more sense the deeper he let himself slip into Shiro’s warm tones.

“He’ll fund the repairs,” Keith continues. “It’ll be kind of a loan. And I don’t have to actually _sell_ to him. Just if I ever do… I need to let him know first. Don’t worry, there’s going to be a prenup, and it’s just for a little while.”

“Yeah, but… why do you have to do this? Why this way?”

Hunk looks genuinely curious. The fact he’s not more alarmed seems to smooth down some of Keith’s ruffled edges. Hunk knows Shiro through Lance and he’s known Lance for forever. If Shiro was shady, surely Hunk would have an inkling?

“There’s benefits for him too. Like, tax stuff. He can offset some of his income combined with mine, apparently.”

“You don’t have an income right now though.”

It was true. In the wake of his father’s shock passing, Keith hadn’t been able to maintain his hours. He quit with more rage that had everything to do with burning guilt behind his breastbone and less to do with the job itself.

He still felt bad for leaving how he did.

“Exactly.”

Hunk pulls a face, still trying to make sense of it all. Keith doesn’t blame him. It’s a crazy idea. Crazier that Shiro had even suggested it, crazier still that Keith had agreed. But it’s the easiest way for them both to get what they want.

“So, like, the only thing you have to do is… get married?”

Keith’s cheeks heat. _Get married._ Those words conjure up mental images of flowers and rings and happily ever afters, of love and commitment but this marriage won’t have any of those things.

A marriage of convenience.

“Yeah,” he says with more bravado than he feels. “That’s it.”

Hunk eyeballs him hard for a moment then shrugs. “Well, okay then.”

 

* * *

 

Lance is the one who makes all the arrangements and only a few days shy of the bank’s threat to sell the house out from under him, Keith finds himself waiting on the steps of the courthouse. It’s mid-morning and the sun shines brightly overhead, only a smattering of clouds travelling slowly across the sky.

“And here he is, the lovely blushing groom,” Lance announces from behind him. Keith turns around to find Shiro’s assistant approaching with a stunningly beautiful woman at his side. “All ready for the big event?”

“Uh, I guess so.”

Lance grins and then offers a mock bow. He presents the woman beside him who watches Keith with shrewd eyes. He wonders what she’s been told, if she’s aware of the arrangement or if they have to run with the make-believe fantasy of a whirlwind romance.

“Keith, allow me to introduce you to my lovely girlfriend, Allura. Allura, this is Keith, Shiro’s future husband.”

Something in Keith’s mind fizzles and sparks at hearing those words. His nerves that had currently been held at bay begin to clamber over themselves in a bid to be noticed. His heart rate picks up and his mouth goes dry.

“Hi,” he says roughly, relieved when Allura gives him a quick pat on the shoulder and whispers in his ear that Shiro is a good man and that everything will be fine.

From there, the rest of the morning is a blur. Hunk arrives a short time later and they move out of the warm sun and into the shade of the courthouse foyer. Lance and Hunk chatter between them and Keith finds himself staring out the window anxiously for the man he’s supposed to be marrying. Shiro arrives a scant five minutes before it’s their turn and Keith momentarily experiences a bout of cold feet. He balks just before the wide panelled doors of the room where the civil ceremony will happen.

Shiro seems to sense his pause and he stops to turn around and walk back to Keith’s side.

“Hey,” he says softly. He’s worn a new suit today, dark blue with the shirt unbuttoned at his throat. No ties today, just a casual elegance that Keith appreciates. His suit doesn’t fit him nearly so well but he’d refused a tie too. “If you’re having second thoughts, just remember the prenup. Allura checked it out and it’s water tight. You have nothing to worry about.”

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Why do you care what happens to me and some crappy old house?”

Shiro lays a hand against his shoulder, a warm and solid link between them as he leans close. “I know what it’s like to be alone in the world. To lose your parents. I had people who helped me. I want to help you, Keith. And if this is the way that I can do it, then I will.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough. Look, like I said, this is a business arrangement. We’re both getting something out of this. All I ask is that if you ever do decide to sell, whether it’s in a few months or a few years down the track, that you allow me to make the first offer.”

Keith searches for any hints of a lie in Shiro’s eyes but there’s nothing there but a warmth he wants to lean into.

He wonders what his parents would make of all this before quickly shutting the door on that thought.

Grief can make you do funny things.

 

* * *

 

The ceremony is over quickly and a small part of Keith can’t decide if he’s relieved or weirdly disappointed that they don’t exchange rings. Once the paperwork is signed, they head outside and Keith belatedly realises he has no idea what to expect now.

He’s not left to wonder for long when his new husband pulls out his phone and nudges Lance lightly on the shoulder. He’s already holding the phone to his ear, talking smartly into it as he strides away, down the wide courthouse steps and into the bustling crowd on the sidewalk. Lance frowns slightly and gives Keith a look that might be apologetic if Keith hadn’t been quick to school his features into something bland.

Keith isn’t sure why it hurts like it does and puts it down to the leftover emotions of wishing his parents were still around. He wouldn’t need to do this crazy stunt if they were still here.

“So, I guess it’s back to work for us then,” Lance says after clearing his throat. He leans over to give Allura a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you at home, babe.” He pauses long enough to wave offhandedly at Hunk and Keith then pivots to hurry off down the street after his boss.

Keith doesn’t miss the uncomfortable glance between Hunk and Allura.

“Guys, it’s fine,” he says, trying to laugh off the stupid little sting that pricks in his chest. “You know what the deal is. What were you expecting? A wedding reception and cake and a DJ playing a waltz?”

Hunk peers at him a little too intently to be comfortable. “No, but were _you_?”

 

* * *

 

The funds that appear in his account the next day are enough to make him choke on his morning coffee. He coughs, thumping himself on the chest as Kosmo whines worriedly at his knee. The amount there is enough to set all his arrears to right, get the banks off his back and start working on all the corners of the house that need repairs and updates. He hasn’t heard much from Shiro since the ceremony the day before and as he lay awake in his childhood bed on what should have been his wedding night, he tells himself he’s completely fine with this arrangement.

No emotions, no strings. Just a simple business transaction.

He pushes aside the tiny flicker of disappointment when another day rolls by and he doesn’t hear from Shiro and gets to work, pulling up the hideous green carpet in the living room before he contemplates taking a sledgehammer to the kitchen then quickly decides to leave that until last.

The hardest part proves to be moving all of his parents’ things and its Pidge that he steels himself to call on to help him with that. She’s a no-nonsense woman, pragmatic to a fault and didn’t believe in the sentimentality of objects but she was also sensitive enough to push him out of the house and send him to the dog park with Kosmo while she went to work.

Hours later, he’d returned to find the middle bedroom stacked high with boxes and his parents room stripped. Even the bed had been dismantled and moved into the hall.

Pidge finds him staring into the empty room. Dust mites float in the air above the space where the bed should be.

“It was broken,” she says quietly then presses a piece of paper into his hand. He glances down. “I ordered you a new one. This is the delivery slip, it’ll arrive tomorrow.”

“I have a bed.”

Pidge rolls her eyes. “Keith, you’re twenty-three years old. At some point, a race car bed just isn’t cute anymore.”

“Shut up,” he mutters but his eyes sting, partly from embarrassment, partly because he’s so touched by her thoughtfulness. She hugs him briefly from behind then trots into the kitchen to grab her backpack.

“Call me if you need me for anything else, okay.”

“Sure.

“I mean it. You don’t have to do all this alone.”

She’s gone before he allows himself to answer. “Yeah, I do.”

 

* * *

 

It’s a Tuesday when Keith discovers the state of the back deck is far worse than he anticipated. He works for most of the day, hauling up the timbers and discarding the rotting, splintering planks off to one side. The house looks like a construction site now, but with each update, he can see it coming back to life. It won’t be the life of his childhood, but something new, something he’s build with his own hands to make his parents proud.

He can feel them around him sometimes.

Sometimes he even scales the old mango tree in the back yard and stares out through its branches, reliving memories and trying to recall the echo of his mother’s voice. Sometimes he forgets what she looked like but he’ll never forget her sharp eyes and her sharper tongue. She was all strength and grace, a fierce counterpart to his father’s gentle softness. His father had worshipped her, just as much as Keith had.

He pulls at another nail on the deck, ignoring the bead of sweat that trickles down his back. He’s working away so hard at it that he almost doesn’t hear the slam of a car door or the crunch of footsteps on the gravel beside the house. He expects it to be Hunk or Pidge and he blinks in surprise when it’s Shiro instead.

He stops what he’s doing and wipes his forearm across his head, attempting to push away his sweaty hair from his eyes.

Shiro flashes him a grin as he glances around. “Wow, you’ve really gone to town on this, haven’t you?”

“There’s a lot to be done.”

“No kidding. Need any help?”

Keith eyes the trim suit Shiro wears. He looks like he’s about to step into a board meeting. Definitely not the right kind of outfit for the sweaty manual labour he was currently doing.

“I wouldn’t want you to ruin another suit.”

Shiro laughs at that and strides closer. Kosmo whines pitifully from his perch on the one corner of the deck that hasn’t been pulled up and Shiro reaches up to ruffle his fur. “Sorry, buddy. I haven’t got any treats today.”

Kosmo huffs and lowers his head against his paws. Keith frowns. “If you and Hunk keep feeding him treats, he’s going to end up overweight and spoilt.”

“Hmm, there are worse things in life.”

“Not if you’re the one cleaning up after him.”

Shiro huffs a small laugh. “Fair point. But seriously, this looks like a lot of work for you to do on your own.”

Keith shrugs and picks up his hammer to continue worrying at the nail. It’s sunk into the wood and he’s struggling to get the lip of the hammer under it.  

“I’m used to it,” he grunts.

Shiro watches him for a moment longer and Keith tries not to flush under the weight of his gaze. He refuses to let himself think about how he’s bound to this man, linked in a way that he half wishes could be real.

It can’t be though, not really. Besides, he’s sure it’s just the grief that wants him to fall into Shiro’s arms. To wish it was something more than it was.

Shiro taps the deck with a strong finger. “I’ll be right back.”

He’s gone before Keith can respond and a few long moments pass before he hears the car door slam again. He expects the engine to rumble to life but instead, Shiro comes jogging back around the side of the house. He’s dressed differently now, a white tank and black pants and a pair of red sneakers on his feet. They look like gym clothes and Keith is almost speechless when Shiro climbs up onto the remains of the deck and holds out his hand.

“Hand me that hammer, would you?”

 

* * *

 

It turns out that Shiro is a workhorse. The muscles that Keith sees shifting across his chest and arms are more than just pretty and he has a stamina that puts Keith to shame. Keith quickly realises how much bigger he is up close and Keith finds the work goes so much faster with Shiro beside him.

His company is easy too.

Shiro starts the conversation by asking Keith about the history of the area, letting Keith ramble absently about how the local corner store he used to trudge down the road to in order to pick up milk as a kid was now a trendy café with overpriced coffees and fancy cakes. Shiro talks too, chatting about some of the projects he’s worked on, his first property successes and his ability to identify an area and swoop in before it had the chance to really take off. He talks about his cat too, regaling Keith with an animated story of his cat’s utter disgust when he’d returned home smelling of dog and making Keith laugh in spite of himself.

“I’m not kidding, Keith. I’m pretty sure he hates me now,” Shiro tells him at the end of the day once the sun had set. They’d managed to pull up most of the deck and replaced half of it with new timbers and now they sat overlooking the sparkle of the city with a pizza between them and a bottle of wine that Shiro had found stashed at the back of the kitchen pantry. Keith had no idea how old it was but the sour expression on Shiro’s face when he took a drink had him laughing so hard that Kosmo had snatched the slice of pizza right out of his hand.

He couldn’t remember the last time he laughed like that.

“I’m sure your cat will forgive you eventually, Shiro.”

Kosmo nudges at Shiro’s thigh with his nose and whines. “Seriously, it’s bad enough I’m going to go home in different clothes, but he really might try to claw my face off in the middle of the night if I’m not careful.”

“He sounds vicious.”

“So vicious,” Shiro laughs.

He takes another swig of the wine before handing the bottle to Keith. Despite it’s less than stellar taste, the alcohol is just what they both need with aching muscles from the physical labour of the day. Even the hot shower to wash off the sweat and grime and dust hadn’t quite hit the spot like the wine did.

Keith takes a drink, wishing he had the energy to go looking for more. He doesn’t want Shiro to leave yet, enjoying the way they seem to click together far too much. It’s been a long time since Keith had felt this comfortable with another person. Even with Hunk he sometimes had to be careful what he said. Hunk’s heart was huge, but sometimes his friendship was as gentle as a brick to the head.

But Shiro… Shiro reads him well. He knows when to leave a subject alone, he seems to be able to understand instinctively when to crack a joke when the tension builds too much and Keith can feel the emotion building in his throat. He’s like the bomb diffuser shuffling the wires and Keith is the bomb.

“I don’t think I even really said it before now, but I’m sorry for your loss, Keith. I really am.”

Keith blinks as he lowers the wine bottle. The wine suddenly feels like acid in his stomach. He places it down onto the deck with a thump and swings his legs over the edge to dangle them in the night air. Beside him, Shiro sighs softly and folds down the lid of the pizza box, leaning back to shove it hard enough that it slides across the deck and out of reach.

Keith glances at the way Kosmo’s ears suddenly prick up and his eyes glow.

“I hope you didn’t want any more pizza,” he comments. Kosmo hauls himself up and pads over to the box, nosing at it and snuffling. Keith considers climbing to his feet to cart it inside or dump the box in the bin but he’s too tired to be bothered.

“I’m good,” Shiro says. He picks up the wine bottle and takes another sip before scrunching up his face and tipping the bottle upside down. The liquid splashes out onto the dirt below.

“Hey,” Keith protests. “What are you doing?”

“Screw this, I’m gonna call Lance to bring us some real booze.” Shiro tugs out his phone and goes to hit dial before Keith snaps out a hand to snatch it.

“Oh, hell no. I can live without booze if it means he’s not going to show up on my doorstep.”

Shiro laughs but leans forward to take his phone back but Keith holds it higher, keeping it just out of reach. It’s impossible to miss the way Shiro’s muscles cord this close or miss the sight of a long scar he hadn’t noticed earlier snaking down the inside of his forearm. Shiro smells good too, even if he looks faintly ridiculous in a dated pair of old sweats and a t shirt that once belonged to Keith’s dad.

“Come on, Keith. We worked hard today.”

“Isn’t it a bit late to be calling your assistant anyway?”

Shiro makes a lunge for his phone and Keith is distracted enough by the curve of soft cotton over his biceps that he doesn’t fight too hard. He wishes he did though when Shiro leans back and he finds himself missing the proximity.

“Lance gets paid the big bucks to make sure he’s available twenty-four seven. Might as well make him earn it.”

Something about the way Shiro says it makes Keith laugh. “By making him fetch you booze at ten o’clock at night?”

Shiro grins at him. “Amongst other things.”

Keith runs his gaze over the man beside him. He had met Lance’s girlfriend the day they’d stood before the judge but he wonders if there’s more to it. Shiro must see the flicker in his eyes because he shifts back, chuckling lightly.

“No, nothing like that. Strictly professional.”

Strictly professional. Like them, Keith supposes.

Suddenly his mood dims and the feeling of acid in his stomach flows back. A wave of longing washes over him when he glances away. Shiro was sitting so close Keith could feel the heat of him and for the briefest moment, he wishes he could just lean into that wall of heat and beg Shiro to tuck him against his big chest and maybe just for a little while, Keith doesn’t have to feel so alone in the world.

It’s a stupid thought. They weren’t even really friends, were they? Like Shiro had stated moments earlier, it was an arrangement that was strictly professional.

It doesn’t stop him wanting more though.

 

* * *

 

It’s harder than he realises to go through the house on his own. The house has too many ghosts, all the way back to his first memories when he knew nothing of the world beyond his mother’s smile and his father’s gentle laugh.

His father had stopped laughing after his mother passed. Keith doesn’t blame him for that, not anymore. His father hadn’t just lost his wife, but his son too. Keith aches with regret when he finds a tin box at the bottom of the linen cupboard, the old kind with the Rosella on the front that they used to receive at Christmas time from the elderly neighbours a few doors down the street. They were gone now too, but this tin still remained.

He pries the lid off with shaking hands and a collection of old Polaroids spill into his lap. It hurts to look at them, photos of his parents before he was even a spark, photos of him as a newborn with dark hair and chubby cheeks. His parents are smiling, happy and in love and a small part of Keith wonders if that was their crime. They were too happy, too in love with their life that the universe had seen fit to rip it away. From them, from him.

Some days the grief is too heavy and it’s all he can do to pull himself through the house, nudged along by Kosmo’s insistent whines. If he hadn’t had to force himself to move to tend to Kosmo’s needs, Keith is sure there are days the grief and the emptiness keeps him pinned to the floor.

The days pass and the house shifts around him, half gutted in places, pristine in others. Some days Hunk shows up, so does Pidge.

So does Shiro.

He starts to show up more often and almost always prepared to work. Keith finds himself listening for the now familiar sound of his car, the crunch of his shoes on the gravel, Kosmo’s happy bark when he shoots off down the hallway on clicking paws as he scrambles on the polished floorboards to greet him.

It’s Shiro’s warm tones when he greets Keith, his smile that makes Keith’s heart squeeze inside his chest. It’s the first sign of life his heart has shown since that fateful day he took the call from Kolivan about his father. Keith finds himself smiling back, until the world around him creaks and the guilt wells up and a voice tells him he’s just looking for something to chase away the grief.

It’s well past sunset when they sit on the edge of the newly minted back deck. Keith keeps his gaze trained on the city in the distance and tries to ignore the heat radiating off the man beside him. The lights reflect along the river, a shimmering mirror to the towers above.

Shiro tilts his face towards the heavens, a beer dangling loosely in one hand and hair curling against his forehead after a day hard at work stripping the ugly dated wallpaper from the walls in the dining room.

“I know everyone says the city skyline is beautiful, but nothing really beats the stars.”

Keith looks up then too. He can make out a few familiar constellations overhead and a memory of lying on a blanket out in the yard with his mother washes over him. He must have been about seven or eight when they did that. He’d fallen asleep listening to her talk about them only to wake up the next morning warm in his bed.

He missed that feeling sometimes, just a little kid safe and warm and cared for.

“My mom loved looking at the stars,” he hears himself say quietly into the darkness. At the bottom of the block, a breeze catches the leaves of the trees and they rustle softly. “Dad used to call her a star child. Not sure what that meant though.”

“I used to have a telescope when I was a kid,” Shiro confesses. “Once, I told my grandfather I was going to go up there. Grow up to be an astronaut and go all the way to Kerberos and back.”

In spite of himself, Keith smiles imagining Shiro as a kid. “What did he say?”

“Not much. He patted me on the head then gave me a candy and that was it.”

Keith stares at Shiro’s profile, frowning slightly and Shiro glances at him sideways.

“He was Japanese,” Shiro explains. “Couldn’t speak a single word of English so he had no idea what I was saying but I guess he approved anyway.”

Keith’s small snort turns into a choked laugh at Shiro’s stupidly wide grin. Shiro catches his eye and Keith can’t bring himself to look away. He likes Shiro. He likes Shiro a lot and a small part of him wonders if he might have said it out loud when Shiro’s gaze darkens suddenly and Shiro’s fingers land lightly against his jaw. It takes everything Keith has not to press into that touch, a simple, tiny human touch he didn’t realise he was so starved for.

But it was more than that. It was Shiro.

Shiro moves slowly, leaning forward as Keith’s lips part softly. His heart beats a rapid tattoo and the wine in his belly suddenly bursts into butterflies and spreads through his body. He’s equal parts scared to move and desperate and he tenses with all the turmoil and longing that Shiro seems to bring to life in him.

In the end, it’s Shiro that brings them together first. A slide of his fingers to the back of Keith’s neck, cradling his head as he leans ever closer with dark eyes. Keith wants to speak, he wants to beg, he wants time to speed up so that he can feel Shiro’s lips on his, he wants time to slow down so this moment never has to end.

He feels the gentle puff of Shiro’s warm breath on his skin a moment before Shiro looms close and kisses him. It’s a tentative kiss, dry and exploratory but just as Keith feels that Shiro is about to pull back, he opens his lips and draws Shiro deeper. His hands fly up, clutching at Shiro’s shoulders, at his shirt as he tilts his head and Shiro presses deeper.

God, Shiro tastes even better than he looks and Keith can’t stop himself from digging in his fingers into his skin. Shiro’s hands roam over his back, in his hair and against his hips until suddenly he feels those hands tugging on his hips and he ends up half cradled in Shiro’s lap.

“Keith,” Shiro murmurs, breaking the kiss long enough to suck in air and drag his teeth under Keith’s jaw. There’s a sound like a whimper, a small and pathetic sound that Keith should probably be embarrassed by but is soon quickly forgotten when somehow Shiro dips him back onto the deck.

The new floorboards are hard under his back and the smell of freshly varnished timber tickles his nose but he curses when a furry mass barrels towards them, attempting to lick both their faces. Keith snarls crankily and shoves Kosmo away, only to be suddenly lifted into the air.

“Wrap your legs around me,” Shiro commands him and he complies instantly. Shiro walks them through the house, Keith only dimly aware under the assault of Shiro’s mouth of Kosmo bounding at their heels. Shiro lowers him to the bed, pulling away only long enough to shove the dog out of the room and shut the door. White walls and a new bed tells him Shiro steered them into his parents old room and Keith spares a heartbeat to offer up a prayer of thanks for Pidge and her foresight.

Shiro strips off the shirt he wears as he strides back towards the bed, bare chest rippling as he leans over Keith and hungrily snatches up Keith’s mouth again. Shiro kisses him like he wants to devour him, hungrily and demanding and Keith presses into it. It’s been far too long since anyone has touched him like this, far too long since he shared another person’s air and he doesn’t stop to think about how much this might hurt in the morning.

This was Shiro, a man who had walked into his life and offered him a lifeline and a Keith rolls onto his back and spreads his thighs to let Shiro settle between them.

Shiro braces himself on one elbow and stares down at him. His eyes are crowded with thoughts Keith can’t read. It’s better if he can’t. Maybe just for tonight, maybe just for this one night, he can pretend... their marriage is real.


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning, Keith wakes to the sound of the radio playing softly and the sizzle of bacon and eggs in the kitchen. For a heartbeat he’s disorientated, thinking it’s his father singing softly as his mother puts on the toast, only to realise the voice isn’t deep enough to be his father.

And that his parents are dead and the person in the kitchen is his technically his husband.

He pushes the new sheets to the side and stands up, stumbling over the discarded cushions Pidge had ordered along with the bed towards the bathroom to splash water on his face and relieve himself. The alcohol from the night before has left behind a dull ache in his head, but it’s only the aches of his body he can focus on. Was any of it real? Did he really sleep with Shiro? And Did Shiro really stay?

The smell of breakfast in the air tells him he did.

Keith spares a moment to comb his fingers through his hair before he walks down the hall and into the kitchen. Kosmo leans into Shiro’s side, begging pathetically for titbits of bacon. Shiro has his back to him, chest bare and only in pants far too small for him. He pauses what he’s doing to flash a quick smile over his shoulder.

“Good morning. How did you sleep?”

How did he sleep? What kind of question was that? Not only had he worked himself to the bone alongside Shiro to finish off the last of the deck, Shiro had also taken him apart on the sheets and put him back together numerous times the night before. So thoroughly, Keith wasn’t sure he was even aware of his own name at times.

“Yeah, uh. Good,” he answers lamely.

Shiro gives him another small smile over his shoulder and reaches for a mug in the overhead cabinet. Keith lingers in the doorway, unsure of his next move. Where do they go from here? Was their marriage suddenly real now? They consummated it after all, didn’t they?

Or did he just have a one-night stand with his husband?

Keith’s head aches, maybe his heart too as he squints at the clock on the wall and blinks at the early hour. Shiro strays close to press a mug of coffee into his hands and Keith accepts it gratefully. He tells himself he’s not disappointed when the mug of coffee and the greeting isn’t accompanied by a kiss then curses himself inwardly for even having the thought.

It was nothing. This was nothing. Just a business transaction, right?

Shiro hums as he pops bread in the toaster, keeping his back towards Keith. He’s not sure if he’s imagining it, but it feels like Shiro is avoiding his eye.

“I thought I’d make you breakfast before I head into work for the day. Lance managed to clear my schedule yesterday but there’s a few meetings today I can’t miss.”

Keith slides into the chair at the kitchen table. His brain is still scrambling to boot up. “Oh. Uh. Okay.”

A moment later, Shiro slides the plate under Keith’s nose and spares a second to squeeze Keith’s shoulder. It prompts Keith to look up but when he sees the same distant kindness in Shiro’s eyes as the first day he’d walked through Keith’s door, Keith almost wishes he hadn’t.

It was stupid to let himself hope and he shifts his gaze away.

“Eat up,” Shiro says quietly. “You’re going to need your strength to finish off this place.”

He’s gone before Keith can think to formulate an answer.

 

* * *

 

The marks on his skin from Shiro’s mouth fade long before he sees Shiro again and the empty coffee cups sitting in the sink start to mock him until his chest feels tight with a different kind of loss.

They do swap text messages but they’re hollow, nothing like the warm, easy humour they shared the night they’d sat on the deck together. That night Keith had seen a side to Shiro he suspects he may have fallen in love with and finds it pathetically ludicrous that he’s fallen in love with a man who for all intents and purposes is his husband.

“I’m a fucking idiot,” Keith announces to Hunk a few days later.

Hunk blinks at him. “Uhh, no, you’re kind of okay, actually. Well, sometimes you’re a bit grumpy but yeah, you’re an okay guy, I mean-“

“No,” Keith cuts him off. “No I mean, I-“

Keith’s words fail him. Or at least his voice does. His internal dialogue for days now has been mostly berating himself for every stray thought that goes to Shiro…. Which is often when Keith has to pile into his car and head down to the local hardware shop to stock up on items and he has to pull out the credit card attached to Shiro’s account to pay for it all.

Hunk stares at him expectantly as the dead air blooms around him. “You can do it, buddy. Spit it out. Let that inner turmoil spill free.”

Keith glares at his friend and Hunk huffs and shuffles back to the kitchen. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Keith throws a dry paintbrush at the space Hunk just vacated. It thuds against the wall and slides to the floor. He growls in frustration then yells down the hallway. “You didn’t!”

Hunk’s head pops out. “Uh, no. I distinct- No, wait. You’re right, I didn’t. My bad. Let me do it now. This whole marriage thing was a bad idea, Keith.”

Keith drops his head into his hands and moans pathetically under his breath. “No shit.”

 

* * *

 

Kosmo bounds down the stairs and along the path when the sound of the postie bike buzzes up the street. The bright yellow helmet is visible over the tall fence as they pause to slide the mail into the letterbox before zipping down to the next house and Keith uses the mail as his motivation to haul himself up to this feet and trudge down the path after his dog.

He’s tired and sore, his shoulder aching after he had swung with a little too much momentum with the sledge hammer and ended up through the tiles in the bathroom. The ceramic tub had cracked too easily and almost ended up through the floor and a small part of Keith was seriously starting to doubt his ability to finish of the renovation to the standard he’d hoped. He was sure wherever his parents were, they were shaking their head in dismay at his choices.

And not just when it came to the house.

Two weeks after he learned what Shiro’s body felt like wrapped around his own and he still couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was more than just the sex though, it was the soft wave that coasted around him when Shiro had whispered his name, the soft look in Shiro’s eyes the moment before he leaned down to kiss him. There had felt like there was something there, for both of them, and Keith had pressed his face into the sheets and arched his back and imagined a lifetime of nights like that with Shiro, imagined that what they had was more than just a business arrangement. All those strokes and hoarse whispers in the moonlight… It had felt right, it had felt like home. It had unlocked a desire and a dream inside him and a longing for something more than just a life alone with just his dog on his heels.

He tries to tell himself it’s probably just the grief talking. Probably just one of the many stages he’s supposed to be going through before he can heal. Perhaps he was just trying to find a replacement for his parents, something else or someone else to settle into the gaping wound that still wept inside his chest.

Except, he hadn’t exactly had a close relationship with his father in the last few years and he mourned the chance to repair it was gone as much as the man himself.

He sighs as he reaches into the letter box and pulls out the pile of envelopes. It was less frightening to go through the mail now that Shiro’s funds had settled almost all the accounts but there was still so much he needed to go through. His father, for all his faults, had been big on giving back to the community, busying himself and taking on projects he had no hope of completing all on his own in an effort to fill the space his wife had left behind.

Guess Keith knew where he got it from.

He wanders back into the cool dark of the house as he flips through the mail, until the emblem of the local land authorities catches his eye and he rips open the envelope with a pounding heart and sick dread in his gut.

He scans the page and swears angrily, blood pounding behind his eyes.  

“Son of a bitch!”

 

* * *

 

Shiro turns up the next day, dressed ready to work and carrying an armful of groceries and a six pack of exotic beers in his hands. He doesn’t knock when he gets to the front door, simply juggling the items in his hands and propping the screen door open with his hip as he carts it all inside.

“Keith? Keith! Hey, so I finally managed to clear my schedule for the day so I-“

He trails off when Keith stands in the centre of the hallway, his arms folded tightly across his chest. It doesn’t matter that Keith’s heart still skips when Shiro says his name, he pushes that flicker down ruthlessly and sets his mouth in a hard line.

It’s not difficult to let the glare settle into his eyes.

“Keith?” Shiro says slowly as his footsteps falter. “Is everything okay?”

Keith swallows thickly, steeling himself against the sting behind his eyes. He wasn’t going to fall apart over this. He won’t.

“You tell me. The letter you’ve probably been waiting for is on the counter. Dumb mistake, having it sent here.”

“What letter? What are you talking about?”

Keith shakes his head, the anger from the day before long since banked into something dangerously deep. Hot fire burned out too quickly but this rage, this rage he felt would burn for years.

He drops his hands and turns on his heel, not even bothering to check that Shiro follows him. He does, of course, trailing down the hallway after him and shoving the bag of groceries onto the kitchen counter by the sink. He turns around and eyes Keith warily.

“What’s going on, Keith?”

Keith bites down on the flare of anger that wants to crawl up his throat. He sets his jaw but jerks it at the paperwork spread out on the counter. Shiro gives him one more troubled glance before he picks up a page up and starts to read.

Keith watches Shiro’s face closely but his expression is just a mask of polite regard.

“I didn’t ask for another evaluation,” Keith spits out. “We agreed we were going to wait until the renovations were finished.”

“We did,” Shiro says, lowering the letter. He’s frowning in what looks like confusion now and somehow that makes Keith’s temper flare even more. “Wait, are you angry about this?”

Keith swallows back his hiss. “Did you request the new property evaluation?”

“Yes, I did but-“

“Get out.”

Shiro blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Get. Out.”

“Keith-“

_“I said get out!”_

Shiro takes a step back, his hands in the air. “Keith, please, if you just let me-“

Keith lashes out, kicking a chair hard enough it skids on the floorboards. He can feel the hot burn of tears behind his eyes. “Get the hell out!”

Keith hates the way his voice wavers on the final shout. Kosmo whines from somewhere behind him and Shiro’s gaze flickers towards the sound.

“It’s okay, Kosmo-“

“Don’t talk to him, don’t even go near him,” Keith snaps. The anger inside him is boiling over, bubbling with hurt and a crushed fantasy he stupidly allowed himself to indulge in. He was angrier at himself than anything, for being foolish enough to put his trust in someone new, for allowing his walls to come down, just for a little while.

For trying so desperately to fill the dark void on the inside of his chest he was willing to risk everything to do it.

And Shiro had played him like a fiddle, professing to be different to the other vultures who only wanted to make a quick buck. Hadn’t Shiro even admitted it himself that day they worked together on the deck? His talent was identifying where the market would boom next, swooping in early and sitting tight until the market caught up. He’d made no bones about what kind of boon this property would be, his desire for it, and Keith had all but handed it over to him on a silver fucking platter.

Shiro had known Keith didn’t want to sell the property and Keith had trusted him when Shiro had proposed a mutual arrangement, but now his house was tucked neatly into Shiro’s portfolio by virtue of their marriage, Keith could see his ownership of his family home slipping away.

A stupid, fucking mistake.

Shiro stares at him helplessly for a heartbeat but it only serves to make Keith angrier. What else had Shiro been moving around behind the scenes? Showing up to help Keith with the renovations… fuck, no wonder he had been so keen to help. Every improvement Keith made, the more the property’s value rose, the sounder Shiro’s investment.

He’s tired of the lie, of the act, he’s angry at himself for fucking it all up once again and when Shiro still hesitates to move, Keith slams his hands into his eyes and sucks in a deep breath. He’ll survive this, just like he’s survived everything else.

He’ll fight it too.

“Get out of this house, Shirogane.”

Shiro seems to flinch at the use of his name, Keith’s tone dripping with distain. He takes a step back and Keith ruthlessly shoves down the tiny voice inside him that begs him not to do this.

“Okay, I don’t understand what’s going on right now, but I’m leaving okay. I’m leaving.”

Shiro backs away further, moving towards the hallway and pausing before he turns. Keith clenches his hands, willing them not to shake and screaming inside his mind all the things he can’t bear to say out loud.

He’s been so stupid, played like a fool. Walked straight into Shiro’s plan and now he’s sure he’s going to end up with nothing.

Not even his heart.


	4. Chapter 4

Keith doesn’t bother to rehash the sorry, pathetic details with Hunk but he does search out a lawyer and files the paperwork to start the divorce process the first chance he gets. Shiro sends him what feels like a hundred texts begging to talk but he deletes them all. There’s nothing he wants to say and after a few weeks and the court date is set, Shiro stops trying.

It shouldn’t leave Keith feeling as empty as it does.

He does his best to finish the renovations without touching the credit card Shiro gave him, not that he thinks it would work anymore anyway. He wishes it felt better than it did when he chops it up over the kitchen bin and as the last piece falls into the garbage, he closes his eyes and wishes he never took Kolivan’s call. That he never came back. That he never met a man called Takashi Shirogane who fooled him as completely as he fooled his friends.

“I don’t know, Keith,” Pidge sighs as he spills the miserable story the night before he expects his ridiculous marriage to be fully dissolved. “Everyone says Shiro is a really stand-up guy. I can’t believe he would just do this behind your back. You know he went to school with Matt, right?”

“Yeah, well, he’s a salesman. They know how to play people.”

Pidge frowns. “He’s not actually. He doesn’t-“

“I don’t care,” Keith snaps. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Tomorrow it will be all over and I won’t have to deal with him ever again.”

 

* * *

 

It’s the first time he’s seen Shiro since he’d yelled at him to get out of his house but it seems oddly that the three months it had taken to set things in motion have been kinder to Keith than it has to Shiro. Keith is almost startled to see the smudges under Shiro’s eyes, smudges as dark as bruises and skin too pale under his dark hair. He looks like he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks and a small, savage portion inside Keith snarls happily before the guilt sets in and he feels bad for wishing misery on anyone.

There are smudges under his eyes too, but they had been there for a long time.

Shiro doesn’t look at him at he takes a seat at the long table in the high-rise boardroom. Beside him, Allura looks sharp in her pink suit and pulled back hair but she spares a moment to give Keith a tentative smile. Keith stares down at the plush leather chair in front of him before he finally takes the seat opposite Shiro. It’s not really Keith’s first choice of where to place himself but it was where his lawyer Lotor had positioned him and he doesn’t have the energy to fight it.

“Well, then, shall we get started?” Lotor says cheerily once they’re all in their places.

Allura nods and Shiro stares off into the middle distance, his jaw tight. Only once do his eyes flicker to Keith and Keith is startled to see what looks like pain there.

Keith wills himself to ignore it, instead hauling close the hurt and the self-righteous sense of betrayal close around him, building it up like a shield.

Allura and Lotor begin to hash out the details between them. It should have been straight forward considering the prenup and the short amount of time the marriage lasted but Lotor wanted to go for the jugular and Keith told himself he didn’t care as long as he never had to think about Shiro ever again, only the more Lotor pushes, the more Allura caves, until the unease crawls up Keith’s spine and he leans forward to shove himself into Shiro’s field of vision.

“None of this is what we agreed on. Why aren’t you fighting this?”

A tense silence falls over the room. Lotor’s face twists and Allura sharply holds up her hand to silence him when he opens his mouth to speak. He wisely takes her guidance and in the quiet, Shiro’s gaze shifts slowly, travelling wide to finally rest on Keith’s face.

His expression softens in a way Keith’s not sure he deserves and for the first time, Keith starts to wonder if he’s made a horrible mistake in shoving his man away.

“I only asked for the new evaluation to drive up the price of your property on the databases. So the… vultures…. As you called them, would stop circling.”

Keith stares at him blankly for a moment and Shiro smiles tightly. “The numbers wouldn’t add up for them,” Shiro explains. “Too expensive, not enough profit margin. I was only trying to help.”

Keith doesn’t know what to say but he can’t form any words anyway. His throat is thick and when he doesn’t respond, Shiro looks away again and Lotor clears his throat. It’s not long before the paperwork is shoved in front of him and Lotor hands him a pen, indicating where to sign. He touches the tip to the paper and signs on autopilot, a loud buzzing ringing in his head and a growing sense of loss curling around him so tightly he wants to choke.

When the paperwork is pushed to Allura and Shiro’s side of the table, something inside him snaps to attention and he sits up, a wild hope beating inside his chest that Shiro might throw the pen away and walk out of the room leaving this strange agreement between them intact.

He doesn’t though. Despite his earlier stillness, Shiro comes alive when Allura hands him the pen and Keith stares with a sinking in his gut as time slows down and Shiro puts pen to paper and scrawls out his name with a flourish.

Somehow, the lack of hesitation stings. A small, secret flower of hope inside Keith’s chest suddenly curls up and dies.

And just like that, it’s over.

 

* * *

 

Keith doesn’t bother to wait for Lotor to finish talking before he gets to his feet and pushes from the room. He almost runs for the lift doors, imagining that he hears Allura call out his name, then Shiro only to want to smack himself in the head for wishing for the impossible.

Shiro had been trying to _help_ him, just as he had from the moment they’d met and Keith had all but thrown it in his face without a chance to let Shiro explain.

Fuck.

_Fuck._

He’s mashing the lift button when this time he knows he’s not imagining the sound of his name being called out. It’s Shiro’s voice and even though his heart does a flip flop inside his chest, his mind replays the hurt on his face and Keith wants to bury himself in his shame.

The light above the lift pings and the doors slide open. It’s empty and Keith steps in just, slapping the button for the ground floor before he backs up and presses himself against the back wall. The lift doors shift to close just as Shiro rounds the corner at the end of the hallway and stops in his tracks.

The elevator sinks almost as fast as Keith’s stomach.

 

* * *

 

The grass between the headstones of his parents is soft under the dappled light of the nearby trees. His father’s stone is shiny, not yet worn down by the weather and years and Keith traces their names with his gaze. Tears stain his cheeks and his heart hurts in a way it hasn’t since he realised as a child that his mother was truly not coming home.

Only this time there was no one there to pull him close and rock him against their chest.

He’d pushed his father away, now he’d pushed Shiro away too. He lost them both.

“Mom, I fucked up,” he whispers and the wind carries away his words on the breeze. “I fucked up so bad.”

A small black and white bird swoops past as he presses his face into his knees. He feels small and lonely here and the years ahead stretch out before him like a dark path. He knows the grief will fade eventually; he knows time will dull the sharp edges but it’s these moments he struggles to push through.

When he gets home, it’s dark and Kosmo isn’t there to greet him at the gate like usual. Instead, his dog’s head is tucked snugly into the lap of a man sitting on the top step that leads to the front verandah, his back against the railing. It’s hard to make out his face in the darkness but Keith would recognize the sweep of those shoulders in any lifetime.

Shiro threads his fingers through the fur on Kosmo’s head as Keith approaches. “Hi,” he says softly.

Keith swallows, suddenly grateful for the darkness. He hopes it hides his red nose and puffy eyes.

“What are you doing here?”

Shiro takes a long moment to answer and Keith regrets the harsh way the words fell out of his mouth. His heart pushes against his ribcage and blood threatens to roar in his ears. He feels like this is just a moment that will postpone the inevitable, a stay of execution when he’d already resigned himself to the end.

He’s not sure if his heart can take it.

Shiro studies him, his eyes glinting in the moonlight. “You took off so quickly.”

A stone scrapes under Keith’s boot as he shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, not like there’s much left to say.”

“Actually, there is.”

Hope flares a little too brightly in Keith’s chest then quickly dies. Ash sits on his tongue.

“Yeah? Like what? You seemed pretty happy to sign that paperwork earlier.”

He doesn’t know why it comes out bitter like it does. Can he really blame Shiro for that? What did Keith expect? A pause, a snap of the pen, Shiro ripping up the paperwork and dropping to his knees to beg Keith to stay married to him? Even after Keith himself had already signed?

Stupid.

“I was.”

It cuts deep and Keith wonders if Shiro knows how deep it does. Maybe he’s trying to hurt Keith as much as Keith hurt him, maybe he has no idea of the sting those words bring. It doesn’t matter.

“Okay. Cool. Well, see ya later then-“

Keith goes to push up the stairs and into the house but Shiro reaches out to snag his wrist before he can move too far. Then he tugs gently, pulling Keith down onto the step beside him. Keith half falls, too tired and heartsore to fight and not sure he wants to anyway.

“You’re the most headstrong person I’ve ever met, did you know that?”

“Fuck you,” Keith mutters weakly, spine stiffening. He tries to pull away. “Did you come here just to dig the knife in deeper?”

Shiro entwines their fingers together, even when Keith’s digits are stiff and unyielding. “I never dug the knife in in the first place, Keith.”

Keith stills with the truth of it. He sighs, and the tension and hurt that he had nurtured so deeply inside him rolls out on a breath. A tear pricks behind one eye and he briefly wonders how he could have any left. “I know. I’m… I’m sorry.”

Shiro squeezes his hand, a warm press and the fleeting glimpse of a smile in the darkness that Keith isn’t sure he really deserves.

“Lance warned me, you know. Told me I wouldn't be able to keep my emotions out of this.” Shiro gives a dry chuckle. “He was right.”

Keith thinks about the time they spent together, working side by side on the house and then later when their bodies were slick with sweat of a different kind. He remembers the way Shiro had said his name, the way his mouth had fit so perfectly to his body. Keith had run his hands through Shiro’s hair, over warm skin and pale scars, letting his lips follow. At least he hadn’t imagined that.

In the ashes inside him, something flickers. Something burns.

“Is that… is that why you’re here?”

There’s a beat of silence. “Partly. I don’t want to leave things the way we have. It doesn’t sit well with me.”

Shiro releases his hand then, leaning behind him to pluck something off the deck. It’s a yellow envelope, thick with paperwork.

“I need to give you this,” Shiro says, handing it to him. Even in the darkness, Keith can see the emblem of the city council on the corner. His stomach sinks.

Keith stares dumbly at it, trying to process the churning inside of him. Everything hurts in ways he never realised he could hurt. But he doesn’t blame Shiro for not wanting to leave things the way they did, for the way Keith had shut him out. Keith owed him this at least.

Stupid of him to hope for anything more.

“What is it?”

“It’s the heritage agreement for you to look over if you want to go down that path. I had Lance look into it and the history of this home… It’s been here a long time even before your family had it, Keith. It’s part of this city’s original landscape. You can protect it forever if you decide to sign this.”

Keith holds the envelope in his lap. A heritage listing would mean the house could never be demolished. It would mean that developers would instantly loose interest in the property.

It would mean that even if one day Keith ever sold, the house would always be standing.

He swallows around the lump in his throat. His fingers tighten on the envelope, tightening around it in case his traitorous hands try to reach for Shiro instead. There really was nothing left now. Shiro would give him this and walk away and Keith might never see him again.

He’d prepared himself for this. He told himself he wanted this.

Then why did it suddenly hurt so much he wasn’t sure he could breathe.

“Shiro, I…“

Shiro smiles gently, a small flash of white in the moonlight that Keith suddenly finds himself desperate to chase. “The other part,” Shiro continues softly, “Is because I think I fell in love with you, Keith.”

The universe grinds to a halt. Keith’s heart soars. The colour comes back.

“Shiro-”

“You need time to heal,” Shiro tells him gently. His hand creeps into Keith’s hair and a small breeze flutters the edge of the envelope. “You need time to heal from your loss. But when you’re ready, I'll be right here waiting for you.”

 

* * *

 

It's hard, Keith doesn't want to let him go.

Shiro doesn't stay but he does cup Keith's face gently in his hands and runs the pads of his thumbs over Keith’s cheeks. He leans down to press a warm, deeply soul restoring kiss to Keith’s lips before he leaves.

Keith continues to work on the house, reenergized and bolstered by the knowledge that the house is safe. He takes even more care now, crafting what he can and calling in help where he can’t.

A new idea starts to take root.

Weeks later, the new kitchen and bathrooms go in and he doesn't recognize the space anymore. He can't imagine his mother here in this blinding white kitchen, even with its unique heritage touches.

He finds himself starting to imagine a new family here instead.

It's eight months since his father had passed when Shiro rubs the back of his hand with his thumb. They’re standing on the back deck, a beer in hand as the sun sinks beyond the city’s silver towers. “Are you sure about this?”

He looks Shiro in the eye. His heart races, tripping over a million colourful hopes blooming in the deepest core of him. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

 

* * *

 

On the day of the auction, Keith puts the call out and his friends descend on the house in a flurry of activity. Hunk puts cookies in the oven to bake, the smell floating through the house in warm, sugary bliss. Allura arrives with arms full of fresh flowers, arranging them in elegant displays in all the rooms. Pidge commands an army of Roombas, each one snaking through the house to dispose of any flicker of dust. He even walks in on Lance fluffing pillows and ironing the sheets directly on the bed, eyebrows raised high before Lance chases him out.

It’s less than an hour until showtime when he can’t take it any longer and he takes his fluttering stomach outside to where Kosmo lays forlornly in the back corner of the garden. He was banished not long after Pidge had to unclog her third Roomba from his dog fur and he still hadn’t quite come to terms with his punishment.

He whines as Keith approaches, tail thumping heavily on the grass.

“Hi, buddy,” Keith says as he ruffles his fur. “How many treasures have you left out there for me to clean up today, huh?”

“None you have to worry about now,” Shiro says from behind him. Keith turns to find Shiro holding a small shovel and a blue plastic bag. He looks comically put out in his expensive suit and slicked back hair. “Seriously, Keith, what are you feeding this dog?”

Keith laughs, a sound that falls out of him all too easily these days. He likes it.

“Didn’t I tell you and Hunk to stop giving him those treats? Serves you right.”

Pidge yanks on his hand when the agent shows up, a guy Keith is pretty sure he might have punched back in primary school. They stare at each other for a moment before James smiles and relaxes into the handshake.

Steadily a crowd starts to build, a crowd of people wandering through and poking into every nook and cranny of the place. Keith had listened to Shiro and Lance’s advice and allowed them to stage it, showcasing the building’s stunning bones and even more stunning view with elegant and expensive furniture. Shiro had already explained to him that the price they fetch probably wouldn’t be the highest on account of the new heritage agreement, a developer wouldn’t be interested in the headache that would bring, and neither would some buyers but Keith didn’t care about that.

It had never been about the money.

Instead, he hopes that the house will go to someone who really makes it a home and a couple in the crowd catches his eye. A lean young woman that reminds him oddly of his mother stands rigidly beside a woman that could be Lance's twin, a small child scampering between them. There's no mistaking the swell of the woman's stomach as the other one leans in whisper in her ear.

They’re shuffled inside by the auctioneer when he shows up, an exuberant fellow with an impressive ginger moustache. He sits them all in the front room, away from the crowd but close enough to hear the action. Keith’s nerves roll in his gut, wilder than they ever had and he finds himself grateful he’s not going to be alone when it all goes down.

“You okay?” Shiro murmurs into his ear minutes before the auction starts. Keith nods stiffly and before he can reply, the auctioneer launches into action.

It’s a slow start but he’d been warned it might be so he tries to tell himself to relax. A bid comes, then another, then the auction is in full swing and the numbers climb, quickly breaking through his reserve and climbing even higher. On the other side of the room, Hunk and Lance clutch each other and whoop excitedly as the bid jumps again, and Keith clings to Shiro’s hand until the final hollered “Sold!” rings out.

He glances out the window to see the family he’d noticed earlier celebrating.

It feels right. They'll be happy here.

“And you,” Shiro asks softly long after the crowds have gone and the contracts were signed. Kosmo lays at their feet and the city glows in the distance. “Where will you be happy?”

Keith slides his hand across Shiro's shoulder and draws their heads together.

“I'm not sure to be honest, but right here feels like a good start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact, the house in this fic actually exists :D


End file.
